Global Top 10: meeting the management at Novo Nordisk

Global Top 50 rank: 1

Euro Top 100 rank in 2015: 1

IR Magazine Awards won in 2015: 5

IR team size: 5

Kasper Poulsen, who was head of IR at the Danish healthcare firm when it won the top spot in Europe in June 2015, moved into a financial planning position at the company the following month, with Peter Ankersen, a former equity analyst who covered healthcare sector firms stepping in to lead the world’s top IR program.

Ankersen might not have been in the chief IR position for long, but he knows what makes a successful investor relations program. ‘Novo Nordisk is a focused pharmaceuticals company that, over a long period, has delivered solid financial results,’ he says. ‘Both executive management and IR are engaged in an open, transparent and honest dialogue with investors and analysts.’

Despite the five-strong team attending around 1,500 investor meetings across 2015 and spending a combined 250 days on the road, Ankersen’s IR team is still boosted by a commitment from Novo Nordisk’s senior management, he says, with the company’s top executives attending around 300 one-on-ones as well as travelling ‘approximately 60 days depending on how you measure senior management activity.’

Bringing out senior management is one of the company’s strong points. ‘To our knowledge we been good at differentiating on some parameters like ‘meet the management’ events and thematic calls,’ explains Ankersen. ‘We have a disciplined and consistent disclosure practice both in terms of content and format and our extended quarterly booklet, including market data, is much appreciated. And our IR officers are brought in from business areas so investors and analysts meet people with first-hand experience.’